The university’s OH&S policy aims to enable you to work in a safe and healthy manner by creating the conditions for a pleasant working environment where you can perform at your best and without excessive mental or physical strain.
The university has set out its OH&S policy in the Working Conditions Catalogue for Dutch Universities.
The topics covered include:
The university makes every effort to ensure that you can work healthily, enjoy your job and are able to continue working. Your university has therefore drafted an action plan to reduce work pressure. Faculties and services can work out this plan in further detail, depending on their requirements and circumstances. Should you feel the need for it, the university will offer you the option to, for instance, temporarily ease up on your workload or work fewer hours. More details on the latter can be found in Article 5.5 of the CAO. The action plan will be implemented in the period that the collective labour agreement applies. Your university can also use strategic staff planning to continually pay attention to the further development of employees and staffing levels.
It is the university’s responsibility to protect its employees against undesirable conduct at work (CAO article 1.12). Such conduct includes: sexual harassment, intimidation, aggression, violence and discrimination. The university has a code of conduct designed to help prevent undesirable conduct. A confidential advisor is available to support employees who experience undesirable conduct or feel they have been discriminated against. Each university also has an ombudsman whose role is to flag issues and provide advice in this regard.
As your employer, the university must organise your working space to enable you to work in a safe manner (CAO Article 1.17). If you nonetheless become injured or suffer any other type of loss or damage, the university is liable, unless it can prove that all possible preventive measures were taken or that you were demonstrably at fault. If you accidentally cause damage to the university or to someone else while at work, you will not be held liable unless the damage was caused deliberately or due to your own recklessness.
